


Remember the Waltz

by GreyLiliy



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Dancing, Falling In Love, M/M, Romance, Waltzing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyLiliy/pseuds/GreyLiliy
Summary: Tarn wants to dance. Pharma remembers old times.
Relationships: Pharma/Tarn
Kudos: 16





	Remember the Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> [First posted to Tumblr on November 4, 2013 as “Drabble #90 - Tarn/Pharma.” Crossposted to Archive of Our Own on March 10, 2020. Only the work itself has been posted.]
> 
> Written as a Request.

“Primus save us all, he’s listening to something else!” Pharma laughed, strutting into Tarn’s back room. The mighty DJD leader stood tall, next to his music player, barely sparing Pharma a glance. The doctor dropped his medical kid on the side table, and brushed imaginary dirt off his arms. “Is that something with three-beats I hear? A Waltz! Hardly your normal repetitive dribble. I guess miracles happen!”

“Ah, familiar, I see,” Tarn said, lowering the volume on the player in the corner. The music was soft and light, a lift here or there as the instruments picked up and fell. The lower volume suited the gentle background. Tarn held his hands behind his back. “That surprises me.”

“Forbid I listen to music,” Pharma rolled his optics to the side as he drew closer. The doctor crossed his arms, and scrunched his nose at the music player. It was a repetitive song, he had to admit, though the melody was nice. Pharma tapped his finger in time with the base beat. “I’m not completely uncultured, you know.”

“I never hinted that you were, dear Doctor.” Tarn tapped his finger in time with the music on the counter, in time with Pharma’s. The doctor drew his fingers in a fist, as Tarn straightened. He leaned over toward his ‘dear doctor’ and asked, “Just how familiar are you, if I might ask?”

“I recognized it’s a waltz. That should be enough.” Pharma knocked his knuckles into the front of Tarn’s chassis. The music swelled with his irritation. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m in a rush today. There’s rumors of a ‘Con attack this afternoon, and the head doctor should probably be working when we get a rush of incoming.”

“Nonsense,” Tarn said. He tipped Pharma’s chin up, fingers brushing the underside as if he were examining a fine trinket. Tarn placed his thumb on the edge of Pharma’s lip, and the doctor had done this enough to know not to move. “I think your time would be better spent in discussion of the finer things.”

“Tarn,” Pharma said, ignoring the brush of his lip against the side of Tarn’s thumb. He leaned forward, and tilted his cheek into Tarn’s palm. “I know you like to bend our deal, but this particular part is non-negotiable, and even you must realize that.”

“Of course I do,” Tarn said. He removed his hand, and placed fingers to the side of his own head. Pharma heard the click of a communicator, and tapped his foot. A moment later, Tarn removed his hand. And touched along Pharma’s wing. “Done. I’ve had the attack you so feared moved to next week. We have plenty of time to talk now, don’t we?”

“You can really order around Decepticons in other divisions?” Pharma asked, tilting his head. He ignored the brute’s fingertips on his wing. The panels flicking in time with the beat that continued to repeat in the background. Tarn had it on loop—of course he did. Pharma pursed his lips. “Whenever you want without consequence?”

“Messatine is my ‘stomping ground’, as they say.” Tarn turned the music up a notch, and waved his hand along as though he were conducting. “I can do as I please.”

“Of course you can,” Pharma huffed.

“So, as I was asking—the Waltz. Do you recognize it?” Tarn asked. 

He took a seat in his chair, and leaned back. Pharma sighed, and dropped down in his own chair near his. They weren’t getting his checkup done any time soon, were they? Pharma rubbed on the side of his face. “Praises be to Primus, 2nd movement, yes?”

“That’s correct,” Tarn hummed, the amusement in his voice turned Pharma’s tanks as much as it made him think. Tarn held his hand out, the elbow leaning hard on his arm rest. “I’m impressed. It had a lovely dance to go with it as well. Are you familiar?”

“I wasn’t much for dancing,” Pharma shrugged. Time for music and dance was long ago. Long before Messatine and Delphi. Long before this life. The music played on in the background though, stepping on ahead like life. Pharma covered the bottom of his mouth with his hand, and shook his head. “I barely had time to listen to the music, let alone learn the steps to it.”

Tarn was not so disturbed by his thoughts. He confirmed, “So you don’t know it?”

“No,” Pharma said, narrowing his optics. “I don’t.”

“Care to learn?” Tarn asked, his head tilted up. He placed one hand behind his back, and a foot forward. Tarn held his hand out in the same motion he placed the other behind his back for a short, polite bow. “It’s been awhile since I’ve indulged.”

“I think,” Pharma said. He licked the corner of his lips, and took a step back. “That I’ll have to pass. I’d prefer instead if I checked your T-Cog for damage, as that’s what I’m here for, and was then on my way back home. You’ve cleared my evening oh so nicely, and I’d prefer to enjoy it.”

“I insist,” Tarn said. The titan of a mech closed the distance between the two, and took Pharma’s hand in his. He pressed the back tips of Pharma’s fingers to his mask in a mock kiss. “As you said, your evening is free.”

Pharma growled, as Tarn turned up the music. He jerked his hand back, and hissed, shoulders hunched. “What are you doing? This is nonsense!”

“Teaching you how to dance the waltz,” Tarn said, with a light chuckle. He reclaimed Pharma’s hand, the grip oddly light. “It’ll be good for you.”

“Pointless, you mean,” Pharma sighed, willing himself to let his hand remain in Tarn’s. “What on earth would I possible need to know a waltz for in this day and age? The war’s made it all worthless.”

“Ah, but there is a great need to remember and practice, dear Doctor. When Megatron’s glorious empire finally reigns, we can restore the lost culture to the people,” Tarn hummed. He held Pharma’s hand out out his side, and settled the other heavy purple hand on Pharma’s slim waist. Their height made it a tad uncomfortable, but Tarn knew how to lean and where to bed to make it work. He nodded. “Shall we, then?”

“You’re not going to let me say no, are you?” Pharma asked, his plating heating under Tarn’s gentle touch. It was—unsettling. The gentlemanly air the maniac exuded in this room with soft music dancing to a three-beat time in the background. HIs spark pulsed with the music, a tempo he couldn’t control—yet was so predictable and steady. Pharma’s odd romance with this mech he despised. “Adding yet another condition to the deal?”

“If you care to see it that way,” Tarn said, the smile in his voice. “I’ll lead.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Pharma asked, squeezing Tarn’s hand.

The larger bot nodded once with the music, his shoulders going up and down three times with the beat. He waited, and then when the music rose, he tugged Pharma forward gently into the first few steps. Their feet moved with each down beat in the background of the fluttering melody. The jet followed—struggle was pointless with Tarn, really. Interfacing or dancing, it was all the same. Tarn guided Pharma, with little presses to the waist and a light grip on his hand. Only.

This was different.

Tarn was never this kind in the berth, or with his demands of drink and touch. He was never so gentle—not with these light steps. One. Two. Three. Forward and back, a spin. It was something new, something unsettling and frightening. Pharma was led around the room. Tarn had taken lead, as always. Pharma sucked air through his vents, cycling heavily as he flitted on his feet. Never think too hard on it. Not on the soft touch. Not on the music. And not on how well they fit together.

“You’re a natural,” Tarn hummed, turning them to the left. He pulled Pharma up into a spin, putting the Doctor on his tip-toes. Tarn whispered, “Are you sure you haven’t done this before?”

“Not for a long time,” Pharma said, recalling long nights long ago. Dances to this sort of thing. With an old friend who wore red and white. “I had forgotten.”

Tarn pulled Pharma closer, and spun them again. The steps came back to him, one at a time. He knew this dance, and he knew this pattern. Though before he knew them with a smaller partner, they were familiar. Pharma lost himself in a memory long past. His optics flickered off, and he let his head rest where it fell. His fingers locked with the hand that held his own, and he pressed close. Music played, and a hand held tight to his. 

Pharma remembered this.

“If I’d known dancing was your weak spot, I would have tired it sooner,” Tarn whispered, the sweet words wrapping themselves around his spark. It was an invasion of his chest, fading away the sweet memory. Tarn ruined everything, didn’t he? The mech held them tight together as they spun. “Who would have known?”

“That’s cheating,” Pharma mumbled, drowsy and far too heavy for such a light song. He let Tarn carry his weight, what else was the big brute good for? “I’m hardly thinking of you.”

“And yet it’s my breast on which you’ve laid your head, and my hand linked with yours,” Tarn said. His fingers clutched tight to Pharma’s back. Desperately. “I can be satisfied with that much.”

“You’re horrible,” Pharma muttered. He dug the side of his face into Pharma’s chest. “Stop talking. I can’t hear the music.”

“As you wish,” Tarn said.

Pharma sighed, soaking up the heat from Tarn’s frame as they waltzed through his lone quarters. This shouldn’t be as lovely as it was. Dancing together. One. Two. Three. Beats to a waltz, and hand in hand. Pharma would perhaps remember it instead of the other. A far happier memory, trading once monster for another.


End file.
